Thursday, February 08, 2007

Onward and Upward!

Welp, I've finished my Ratatouille test (all 24 frames of looping goodness haha). Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I cannot share it with anyone outside the studio, so it will have to wait until after the movie is released. However! I took that as an opportunity to show it to some animators here, and get some extremely valuable feedback (very subtle spacing tweaks for the most part). They've agreed to look at all my future tests and help me move forward.

Speaking of which- I believe I'm ready to begin planning my next two self-assigned animation tests. Both will use characters from The Incredibles: an action shot (most likely using Bob) that will be something OTHER than a loop, I promise! and an acting piece with Helen. I already have some audio picked out for that from Holly Hunter's role in Broadcast News (I'll post tomorrow), but I want to take my time to fully explore my options before just diving in, so keep an eye out for thumbs and such as I log my thought processes.

By the way, these animation tests are being done outside of my time at Pixar- that is to say they aren't paying me to do them. What I'm actually doing there 12 hours a day I cannot say, but I like to get in a little extracurricular time here and there (sick, I know). Tomorrow I start an Animal Maquette Sculpture class through Pixar University, 8 weeks of sculpting an Amur Tiger- watch out!

Lets see, what else... Yesterday I had lunch with Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews, both super-talented artists who worked together on The Iron Giant as well as The Incredibles and co-directed One Man Band. That was a real treat and brought back some memories of Andrew's visit to NYU last spring.

Anyway, tomorrow evening I'll upload the audio for Helen and some preliminary thumbs, as well as something worth showing (if any) of the maquette. But for now, sleep!